Bible studyhttp://www.livingchurch.org/taxonomy/term/191/all
enThe Lens of the Wordhttp://www.livingchurch.org/lens-word
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>3 Lent</p>
<p>“God spoke all these words” (Ex. 20:1). The subject? <em>God</em> spoke all these words. The verb? God <em>spoke</em> all these words. The object? God spoke <em>all these words</em>. This is slow, of course, but we’re being careful, and care will lead to the road less traveled. While there is a natural homiletic pull toward the enduring words of the Decalogue, even the Decalogue (as we look at <em>all these words</em>) will trouble and disturb.</p>
<p>God spoke: “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Ex. 20:2). God sets the people free. God spoke: “you shall have no other gods before me” (Ex. 20:3). God will not have the people enslaved to idolatries that would bind their hearts to empty promises, false hopes, and death itself. God speaks, commending the Sabbath rest: “The seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work — you, your son or your daughter<em>, your male or female slave</em>” (Ex. 20:10). For freedom not all have been set free. The slave may rest one day of the week, but the slave lives in the house of slavery every moment of every week.</p>
<table style="width:250px;" align="right" border="2" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"><tbody><tr><td>
<p><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent3_RCL.html#OLDTEST">Ex. 20:1-17</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent3_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 19</a><br /><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent3_RCL.html#EPISTLE">1 Cor. 1:18-25</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent3_RCL.html#GOSPEL">John 2:13-22</a></p>
</td>
</tr></tbody></table><p>Is this a <em>Word of the Lord</em>? The Bible tells me so. So the Bible troubles, and trouble is the hermeneutic task. It’s not a question of trying to escape a trap, but of feeling and facing the problem. And because slavery is a strong Christian metaphor, the question must be confronted. St. Paul opens his great Epistle to the Romans, introducing himself in these words: “I Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ.” The metaphor, no doubt, had special poignancy because the institution was yet alive and well. In many ways, it still is.</p>
<p>Does God sanction slavery? Many theologians have said yes. We have moved on from those days, but not far. The great comedian Paul Mooney often corrects cantankerous white people who say, “That was 400 years ago. Get over it.” Mooney quips, “Two grandmothers ago, you could have owned me, us!” It’s awful, terrible, disturbing: human depravity on display.</p>
<p>The Bible is open, but I see through a glass dimly. Who am I to interpret the Bible? When Christ called me, he put scales to my eyes. He told me, “You don’t know anything.” Then, by his sovereign and compassionate command, he said, “Be opened.” Scales fell and yet my vision was unclear. I saw trees walking. Then a translucent and radiant Jesus stood before me, close to me, so close I could see the world only through him. There I saw, in all its complex beauty, one new humanity. I no longer heard the word of the Lord; I looked through it.</p>
<p>I could see that for freedom Christ set us free. If there is something human he has not assumed, he has not saved it. And if he leaves a mere fragment behind, is all lost? O Jesus, you have told me. On the cross, the icon of scandal and folly, the power of God was at work in your death. Who died? Who died when the temple of your body fell? The old human being — deviant and cruel — was fixed to the cross with Christ, and with the voice of our humanity Christ cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (see Gal. 2:20 and Augustine’s commentary on Ps. 140:4-6). In Christ, the sick <em>me </em>is dead!</p>
<p>Let the old Adam go. Let freedom be and work in the one Christ whose blood is a torrent of love.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Psalm 19:3.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />You died with Christ. Now live with him in your new humanity.</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bible-study" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bible study</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/devotions" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">devotions</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lectionary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lectionary</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div></div></div>Sun, 08 Mar 2015 12:27:23 +0000Web Editor2001 at http://www.livingchurch.orgCallinghttp://www.livingchurch.org/calling
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>2 Lent</p>
<p>“When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the <span style="font-variant: small-caps">Lord</span> appeared to Abram, and said to him, ‘I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless’” (Gen. 17:1). Age is just a number. And what is time to God Almighty? “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night” (Ps. 90:4 KJV). God Almighty appears and speaks without invitation. God is not compelled, not forced, and certainly not commanded by human goodness. Grace alone accounts for God’s appearing and speaking to the old man. But grace is not cheap, for the unearned call comes with an unearned vocation. “Walk before me and be blameless” (Gen. 17:1). In this sense, even law, if understood as vocation, is a grace.</p>
<table style="width:250px;" align="right" border="2" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent2_RCL.html#OLDTEST">Gen. 17:1-7, 15-16</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent2_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 22:22-30</a><br /><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent2_RCL.html#EPISTLE">Rom. 4:13-25</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent2_RCL.html#GOSPEL">Mark 8:31-38</a></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p>This is the promise. “You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations” (Gen. 17:4). Abram’s barren wife, Sarai, is not left out. “She shall give rise to nations; kings of people shall come from her” (Gen. 17:16). Not a single nation, but many nations grow from this one couple, who are accounted righteous not because of anything they have done but because God Almighty appears and speaks and commands. Thus, while law is good both as vocation and restraint, law is not the first word. The first word is, “The Lord appeared and said” (Gen. 17:1).</p>
<p>Faith is a summoned response, a response that, though human, is rooted in the free prompting of a giving God. Human freedom and divine gift are two freedoms that meet in the mystery of God’s calling. For when it is said that Abraham “grew strong in his faith,” it is said incorrectly. There is no “his” about which he may be proud. Rather, the sacred word says this: “he was empowered by faith.” Abram is receptive, but passive. God’s got the faith and gives it (Rom. 4:20).</p>
<p>Because the call is rooted entirely in God, the calling may go out even to those who never share in the riches and the wrath of law. God comes not because Abram is blameless but because God’s will and love and command simply come to him. So God may come to anyone and, if we believe the old story, God seems almost to prefer those accounted as good as dead: the very old, the barren, the forgotten, the weak, the sick, the lost.</p>
<p>Leaving nothing out, God comes to death itself. “Jesus began to teach his disciples that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again” (Mark 8:31). He descends to the dead not because age and disease undo him. Rather, he bears the curse of death, human abuse, and rejection. He is consigned to nothingness. Jesus is no more, dead, lifeless. Grace has gone to the horror of hell and called out.</p>
<p>A dead Jesus speaks: “Come to me.” “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34). The promise is sure. There is a cross, a crush weight awaiting everyone, a dying unto death. It is one thing to be accounted as good as dead, another to be absolutely dead. Stone cold death is the raw material of a mind-bending miracle. “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him” (1 Thess. 4:14 KJV). Again, we see the revelation of God Almighty, mighty to call even the dead to life.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Ps. 22:28.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />Your cross. Dying you must do in a thousand ways. Yet<em> undying life</em> is at work in you.</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bible-study" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bible study</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/devotions" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">devotions</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lectionary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lectionary</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div></div></div>Sun, 01 Mar 2015 12:27:23 +0000Web Editor1983 at http://www.livingchurch.orgTwo Floodshttp://www.livingchurch.org/two-floods
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>1 Lent</p>
<p>God speaks: “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (Gen. 9:11). Floods have yet come and bodies have been swept away, giant trees torn from the ground, cars lifted and buildings crushed. The waters that sometimes breach their limit are turbulent and formless, a void and darkness, a destroying death, but not a death to all flesh. Life is promised, but life in a world still hurt and broken. So the promise is renewed with signs, significations that God will remember the members of his body. “When the bow is in the cloud, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between me and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth” (Gen. 9:16). Ultimately, God will preserve and love; yet death is.</p>
<table align="right" border="2" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" style="width:250px;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent1_RCL.html#OLDTEST">Gen. 9:8-17</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent1_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 25:1-9</a><br /><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent1_RCL.html#EPISTLE">1 Pet. 3:18-33</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Lent/BLent1_RCL.html#GOSPEL">Mark 1:9-15</a></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p>The first flood is a type of the second flood, the font of all bleeding from the brow and hands and feet and side of the one Christ who suffered for sins once for all (1 Pet. 3:18). His blood runs from his body down the cross to the ground to cracks in the clay, down into the dark abyss of a molten and boiling hades. His blood “made a proclamation to the spirits in prison” (1 Pet. 3:19). His blood is All Love Excelling. It flows without destroying, gathering in its current what had been locked away in a dark prison-like abyss and lifting it to light and life. Here is a flood to welcome, a flood of love and life.</p>
<p>It is a cleansing, but not of the body. Rather, caught up in the flood of Christ’s love, all those lost in darkness and death — all of us — make “an appeal to God for a good conscience” because without Christ we do not and will never have one (1 Pet. 3:21). “Through the resurrection of Jesus Christ who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God” we claim a new conscience because we are claimed by the life that is his. The current of a bloody love that went down to hades has swelled to heights above angels and authorities and powers (1 Pet. 3:22). He took hell to heaven, broke the grates, and set the captives free in the freedom of his forever love.</p>
<p>Indeed, we may go with Christ to the third heaven, but going with him up will at the same time mean going with him down. He did not account equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself. We return our infirmities. We are new in a renewal not yet complete. The word is sure and to be trusted by all those bathed in the blood of Christ. “You are my son, you are my daughter, you are my beloved, you are the one in whom I am pleased, for I have hidden you in my bosom where my Son is” (Mark 1:11, expanded by grace and adoption).</p>
<p>Tough love for the beloved of God: “Immediately the Spirit drove them into the wilderness” (Mark 1:12). And there were devils and wild beasts, deadly drinks and hissing serpents, temptations and trials of every kind (Mark 1:12; 16:17-18). The wilderness is wild; the wilderness is the world. Fear not! As the angels were ministering to Jesus again and again (imperfect tense), so they will minister to us again and again. In everything, every moment, every trial, even the hour of death, there is one unbreakable promise: “They shall recover” (Mark 16:18).</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Mark 16:15-20.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />Tempted, he transfigured us into himself. —St. Augustine</p>
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<p align="left"><em><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/Readings%202015-02-22%20pix600.jpg" style="width: 599px; height: 275px; float: left;" /></em></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bible-study" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bible study</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/devotions" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">devotions</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lectionary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lectionary</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div></div></div>Sun, 22 Feb 2015 12:27:23 +0000Web Editor1968 at http://www.livingchurch.orgOnly and Everythinghttp://www.livingchurch.org/only-and-everything
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>While going from Gilgal to Bethel, Elijah says to Elisha, “Stay here; for the <span style="font-variant: small-caps">Lord</span> has sent me as far as Bethel” (2 Kgs. 2:2). Elisha pledges his devotion: “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” The dialogue is repeated at Jericho and the Jordan. Gilgal, the prophetic school where Elisha learns under the tutelage of Elijah, is but one of many places where prophets prophesy. Coming from Bethel and then Jericho, a prophetic chorus sings: “Do you not know that today the Lord will take your master away from you?” (2 Kgs. 2;3,5).</p>
<table align="right" border="2" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" style="width:250px;"><tbody><tr><td>Last Epiphany
<p><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpiLast_RCL.html#OLDTEST">2 Kgs. 2:1-12</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpiLast_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 50:1-6</a><br /><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpiLast_RCL.html#EPISTLE">2 Cor. 4:3-6</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpiLast_RCL.html#GOSPEL">Mark 9:2-9</a></p>
</td>
</tr></tbody></table><p>As Elijah and Elisha approach the Jordan River, 50 prophets pursue them in silence. A cloud, rising winds, swirling dust, a chariot of fire, and horses of fire: in the confusion Elisha and Elijah lose sight of each other. Indeed, Elijah is gone. Rising to the heavens, Elijah drops his mantle, drops a double portion of power. In grief Elisha “grasped his own clothes and tore them in two pieces” (2 Kgs. 2:12). But through the ripped cloth a new light enters: the light of Elijah, the light of a double power, the light of the only Light there is. The light of the knowledge of the glory of God comes in, and though the story predates Christmas, this light is “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). The God of the Old Testament is the God of the New.</p>
<p>For a moment Elisha stands alone, but in solitude he remains a compilation of people and places; he stands most significantly as heir to a prophetic school. Jesus was often alone, but his solitude was a recapitulation, a gathering up not only of people and places and experiences in the days of his Galilean walk, but also of human nature, what we are, what we have been, even what we have yet to experience. Alone, he has the whole world in his hand. “Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, … And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus” (Mark 9:2-4). Prophecy + law = Truth. And the greatest of these is Truth. “Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus” (Mark 9:8). Only Jesus!</p>
<p>Do we know that <em>only</em> is also <em>everything</em>? “When I am lifted up, I will draw everyone [and everything] to myself” (John 12:32). Copyists have likely corrected the well-attested <em>panta</em> (everything) to avoid Gnostic overtones, but there it stands in credible manuscripts. For centuries it was preserved in the Vulgate: <em>Omnia traham ad me ipsum</em> (I will drag everything to myself). Looking at Jesus, therefore, is to see more, not less, of what is true and good and beautiful. He reveals the “innermost being of God” (<em>Dei Verbum</em> 4, Second Vatican Council; see also John 1:18). “In giving us his only Son, His only Word, He spoke everything to us at once in his unique Word — and he has no more to say” (John of the Cross,<em> Ascent of Mount Carmel</em>, cap. 22). Leading us into all truth, the Father is always saying what he has said: “This is my beloved Son; listen to him” (Mark 9:7).</p>
<p>In doubt? Listen to Mavis Staples sing “That’s Enough” with Billy Preston on organ. Her aging voice tells it, grinds out in pain the truth we too often are too timid to say. “I’ve got Jesus, and that’s enough” (<em>I Believe to My Soul</em>, Rhino Records, 2005).</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Ps. 50. All excellent greatness = Jesus!</p>
<p><strong>Think About It</strong><br /><em>Only</em> never runs dry.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/Readings%202015-02-15%20Pixels600.jpg" style="width: 600px; height: 354px; float: left;" /></p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bible-study" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bible study</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/devotions" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">devotions</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lectionary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lectionary</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div></div></div>Sun, 15 Feb 2015 12:27:23 +0000Web Editor1952 at http://www.livingchurch.orgCosmic and Closehttp://www.livingchurch.org/cosmic-and-close
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>5 Epiphany</p>
<p>“If I preach the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting” (1 Cor. 9:16). Who am I? I did not make the gospel. Rather, “an obligation is laid on me and woe to me if I do not proclaim it!” I take it to the Jews, and to those outside the law, and to the weak; and since Jew and Gentile are equally weak, I mean to say that I take the gospel “to all people” (1 Cor. 9:22). The gospel is Jesus Christ our Lord, and I am determined to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified (1 Cor. 2:2), and raised, and ascended, and poured out in Spirit and fire. Who is he? Whom do I proclaim? A voice speaks: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him not one thing came into being” (John 1:1-3).</p>
<table style="width:250px;" align="right" border="2" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"><tbody><tr><td>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi5_RCL.html#OLDTEST">Isa. 40:21-31</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi5_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 147:1-12,21c</a><br /><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi5_RCL.html#EPISTLE">1 Cor. 9:16-23</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi5_RCL.html#GOSPEL">Mark 1:29-39</a></p>
</td>
</tr></tbody></table><p>He is the Ancient of Days, a very old Jesus. “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether throne or dominions or rulers or powers — all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together” (Col. 1:15-17). And yet it may seem — no, it is clear — that all things fall apart. Nature trembles and humans fall; nature strikes and human depravity grows. Thus an old Jesus keeps working: “For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased <em>to reconcile to himself all things</em>, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:19-20). He, through whom all things were made, has come to glue the broken pieces with the paste of his blood.</p>
<p>I did not make the gospel. “I am entrusted with a commission,” and that commission includes announcing that there was never a time when the Son <em>was not</em>. So, I see Jesus everywhere, hear him, touch him, and know him in the fabric of what he has made. “It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, … who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, like a tent to live in; … ‘Lift up your eyes on high and see!’” (Isa. 40:22-26). The Word dots the firmament and names the hosts. And yet, in pure love, this same Word comes to the faint, the powerless, and the exhausted (Isa. 40:29-31). He comes, it seems, down to the circle of Earth, but assuredly he comes into human lives. He takes up the weak, and makes them “mount up with wings like eagles” (Isa. 40:31). They run and do not fall, walk and do not faint. They are filled with the fullness of grace upon grace.</p>
<p>I have been asked to tell you how the mighty God comes down. “He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up” (Mark 1:31). <em>He</em> — that is, Jesus. Having healed Simon’s mother-in-law, he took the balm of his goodness to the whole city, healing every disease, casting out every demon (Mark 1:32-34). His work, however, is largely hidden. He hears in secret. He works in secret. “His understanding is unsearchable” (Isa. 40:28). Thus, for now and until the close of the age, God will be God in those who as yet are weak and frail. Jesus is and will be resurrection not after our death but <em>in our death</em>.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Ps. 147:3-4.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />High and low.</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bible-study" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bible study</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/devotions" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">devotions</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lectionary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lectionary</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div></div></div>Sun, 08 Feb 2015 12:27:23 +0000Web Editor1935 at http://www.livingchurch.orgSilence! Come Out!http://www.livingchurch.org/silence-come-out
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>4 Epiphany</p>
<p>Moses reminds the people, “This is what you requested of the <span style="font-variant: small-caps">Lord</span> your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said: ‘If I hear the voice of the <span style="font-variant: small-caps">Lord</span> my God any more, or ever again see this great fire, I will die’” (Deut. 18:16). The people want a mediator, one who would stand in the breach and bear for them the full force of a thunderous God, a burning fire, the sound of many waters. God gives as they desire. “They are right in what they have said. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their own people; I will put my words in the mouth of the prophet, who will speak to them everything that I command” (Deut. 18:18). While this gives safety to the people, it is a trial to the prophet. If the prophet speaks in the name of other gods, if the prophet utters a word not commanded, the prophet shall die (Deut. 18:20).</p>
<table style="width:250px;" align="right" border="2" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi4_RCL.html#OLDTEST">Deut. 18:15-20</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi4_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 111</a><br /><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi4_RCL.html#EPISTLE">1 Cor. 8:1-13</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi4_RCL.html#GOSPEL">Mark 1:21-28</a></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p>A preacher won’t tremble at this point, knowing about the love of God in Christ Jesus, but quite possibly, the preacher is partly wrong. Love is the lion that tears the seven seals (Rev. 5:5). Love is “worthy to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing” (verse 12). It would not harm the preacher to fall down and worship, to feel the full weight of responsibility, to ask humbly for divine help, and to apply all the energy of mind and emotion before ever daring to step into the pulpit. The people of God have every right to expect that the preacher is the steward of love and glory, all sweetness and blazing heat, a warm consolation and transforming power.</p>
<p>Still, in the chain of prophetic being, the preacher is far below Moses and the one like him who is to come. Indeed, often the preacher is, in the pulpit, and in the nave, and in the streets, given to the hard but necessary work of preserving bonds of peace, healing hurts, and holding a frail household together. Blessed are the peacemakers! Whatever knowledge the preacher has and all the good gifts given to the laity are for naught if a brother is puffed up or a sister counts herself the most serious student. Take care of your gift; be cautious! Build up the body. Do not wound the conscience of the weak. Learn to give in and lose often.</p>
<p>Blessed are the peacemakers, indeed. The soft voice, the gentle word, prudence and wisdom are the needed balm — but not always. Now look at the prophet, the one like Moses. He is, first of all, Love Divine. How does he behave? “He entered the synagogue and taught. They were astounded by his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Mark 1:22). His love, his word, and his authority might not have offended, but for this: “and not as the scribes.” Then a man enters the synagogue, possessed and unclean. He asks, “Have you come to destroy <em>us</em>?” He knows; he knows perfectly well that Jesus has a destructive work to do against a plurality of destroying demons. There is a time to concede and compromise. There is a time to rebuke and command. “Be silent!” Jesus says. He commands again, “Come out of him.” This too is love divine, all love excelling.</p>
<p>Back to the preacher, or, for that matter, anyone who must exercise authority. Give in often for the sake of love, but not always.</p>
<p><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Ps. 111:2. Study the deeds of the Lord.</p>
<p><strong>Think About It</strong><br />At least ten scoops of loving kindness, maybe a hundred, for every biting truth. Raise your voice only when absolutely necessary.</p>
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>3 Epiphany</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi3_RCL.html#OLDTEST">Jonah 3:1-5, 10</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi3_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 62:6-14</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi3_RCL.html#EPISTLE">1 Cor. 7:29-31</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi3_RCL.html#GOSPEL">Mark 1:14-20</a></p>
<p>Hearing Jonah’s poetic prayer, the <span style="font-variant: small-caps">Lord</span> “spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land” (Jonah 2:10). Again, God calls the dry land to appear and sets his earth creature upon it (Gen. 1). What is this new creation to do? What is he to think, knowing that often the fish of sea and the birds of the air and cattle and wild animals and creeping things <em>have dominion over humans</em>? Jonah is thrust from the belly of a fish, freed from entangling weeds and roots; he stands wet and shaken.</p>
<p>“The word of the <span style="font-variant: small-caps">Lord</span> came to Jonah a second time, saying, ‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you’” (Jonah 3:1-2). In other words, a great reversal ensues for which our Bible and the whole Christian story are most famous. Jonah will fish for people, baiting them with the word of the Lord. Walking his three-day journey through the city, chanting his concise sermon, he hooks them. “The people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth” (Jonah 3:5).</p>
<p>The word of the Lord is, of course, effectual because it is the <em>word of the Lord</em>, powerful too because every such word carries in it news about the end. “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” (Jonah 3:4). The people feel it, fear it: “the appointed time has grown short,” for “the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor. 7:29,31). They drop what they’re doing, they turn from their evil ways, they change; and God changes too, casting aside the calamity he would have brought upon them (Jonah 3:10). Our story, for all its drama, finds repose in the unchanging mercy of God for all creation. To be sure, God regrets and condemns human depravity, but cannot hate what he has made (Wisdom 11; Collect for Ash Wednesday).</p>
<p>The story continues. “Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news’” (Mark 1:14-15). As the Word begotten of the Father, he appeals not only with his brief eloquence but by the power of his whole being. He says, “Follow me,” and they follow him, one after the other, Simon and Andrew, James and John, as if without reflection, leaving their boats to the seas. And yet the life they leave is an <em>evangelica praeparatio</em> to the calling they take. Saying “Follow me,” Jesus also says “and I will make you fish for people” (Mark 1:17).</p>
<p>Jesus, like Jonah, baits these four men with the Word of the Lord. Unlike Jonah, Jesus is himself the Word that hooks them and pulls them from the deep. He calls them to repent and announces that God’s kingdom is at hand. They go because he calls, for he calls out to something deep in them; he pours light into the secret chamber of their hearts. Seeing him, they feel and hear the words of the synagogue song: “For God alone my soul in silence waits; from him comes my salvation” (Ps. 62:1). Fools though they are in many ways, they are right to go out to him.</p>
<p>The good thing about the Good News is Jesus Christ himself. He is life and salvation and hope. He breaks not a bruised reed; he leaves the dimly burning wick. He is so gentle, so good, so kind, so beautiful. And yet he says: “The time is at hand, come!”</p>
<p><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />God alone includes what God, in love, creates.</p>
<p><strong>Think About It</strong><br />Drawn from the deep and yet still fishing.</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bible-study" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bible study</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/devotions" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">devotions</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lectionary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lectionary</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div></div></div>Sun, 25 Jan 2015 12:27:23 +0000Web Editor1906 at http://www.livingchurch.orgCalled to Freedomhttp://www.livingchurch.org/called-freedom
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>2 Epiphany</p>
<p>Not knowing it, we are found. Resting in peace under a fig tree, Nathanael is seen by the Son of the Father. “Lord you have searched me out and known me; you know my sitting down and my rising up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You trace my journeys and my resting-places and are acquainted with all my ways” (Ps. 139:1-2). Mercy and fear have kissed each other. It is a mercy to be seen by the merciful Christ, and a fearful thing to be seen in Truth. “Where can I go then from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?” (Ps. 139:7). This is not a prurient surveillance, a violation of personhood and privacy. Love Divine does not keep record of wrongs (1 Cor. 13). Rather, God looks not in order to look, but to forgive, save, and renew.</p>
<table align="right" border="2" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" style="width:250px;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi2_RCL.html#OLDTEST">1 Sam. 3:1-10 (11-20)</a><br /><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi2_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 139:1-5, 12-17</a><br /><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi2_RCL.html#EPISTLE">1 Cor. 6:12-20</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi2_RCL.html#GOSPEL">John 1:43-51</a></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p>“If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, O Lord, who could stand?” (Ps. 130:3). Indeed, who could stand? “For there is forgiveness with you; therefore you shall be feared” (Ps. 130:4). The balance is struck: The justice and the love of God convey a fearful forgiveness. We are released as responsible persons under the governing grace of God.</p>
<p>Yet it must be insisted that for freedom Christ has set us free. “Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Gal. 5:1). This is freedom, however, given by Christ’s call and Christ’s grace. “He that the Son sets free is free indeed” (John 8:36). Flowing in the grace of this freedom can never mean that all things are lawful for me and therefore all things are beneficial. God forbid! True freedom is the freedom to love within the mystery of providence and the boundary of vocation.</p>
<p>Is the body free? Pushed by appetite, fleeting desire, animal urge, we humans, wonderfully made, can turn so terribly wrong. “Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?” (1 Cor. 6:15). Perhaps the word of the Lord on this matter should be rare in these days (1 Sam. 3:1). The Church has lost much of its authority in speaking about the flesh and its weakness, and, no doubt, too much has been said in too much detail about physical loving and what is morally out of bounds. Mores on this matter have changed. Still, can we simply say that the body always gives healthy instruction? “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.” What you eat and drink and the person with whom you share your body cannot be matters of indifference.</p>
<p>These are difficult matters, sensitive matters. Christ has come to dwell within us and no account of Christian freedom can avoid the necessity of control and restraint. Perhaps an old voice will help us: “Acknowledge, O Christian, your dignity. For now you share in the divine nature. Do not return to the old depravity of your debased condition. Recall of whose head and of whose body you are a member. Remember that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and transferred into the light and kingdom of God. Through the sacrament of Baptism you have become a temple” (Pope Leo, Sermo 1 in <em>Nativitate Domini</em>, 1-3; PL 54, 190-93).</p>
<p>One thing <em>I do not ask</em> of the Lord, one thing <em>I do not seek</em>, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Why ask when I am that house, as are you? In the grace of a gracious God, the temple is beautiful and free. Skin and hair and bone and blood. <em>Verbum caro factum est</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Psalm 139. Search me out.</p>
<p><strong>Think About It</strong><br />To be dominated is to be addicted. But the temple is free.</p>
<p><img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/Readings%202015-01-18%20pix600.jpg" style="width: 599px; float: left; height: 370px;" /></p>
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>1 Epiphany</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi1_RCL.html#OLDTEST">Gen. 1:1-5</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi1_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 29</a><br /><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi1_RCL.html#EPISTLE">Acts 19:1-7</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Epiphany/BEpi1_RCL.html#GOSPEL">Mark 1:4-11</a></p>
<p>“The voice of the Lord is upon the waters” (Ps. 29:3). Before the voice there was the wind, wordless power trembling over a void of formless night, blackness, a watery deep. Before the wind and water and the murky earth, before even heaven and earth, there was pure essential silence and absolute nothingness. And yet, though there was no thing, there was all fullness, for there was God. God sits enthroned in perfection, the font of all love, all love begotten, all love shared. God need not seek perfection externally. Enthroned, God sits. The corners of the divine mouth lifted slightly, God is content. Why did God create?</p>
<p>Consider one answer: “He who created it created everything for love, and by the same love is it preserved, and always will be without end” (Julian of Norwich, <em>Showings</em>, longer text, chap. 8). Consider this too: “The love of God is pouring and creating goodness in all things …. So Dionysius says, ‘This ought to be said in truth, that God himself is the cause of all things through the abundance of his loving goodness, and that by provident action he goes outside himself to every existing thing” (St. Thomas Aquinas, <em>Summa Theologiae</em> I 20, 1; my trans.). Love is the beginning, the still point before Genesis 1:1; and yet love is the going forth that causes heaven and earth and water to be.</p>
<p>An infinitesimal moment after creating, “the Lord sits enthroned above the waters” (Ps. 29:10). God looks down upon heaven and earth and a swirling sea. God’s Spirit has a powerful voice that breaks, splits, and shakes the formless void (Ps. 29:5-8; Gen. 1:1). God moves over the face of the waters and speaks in love: “Let there be light.” Thus, order, distinction, intelligibility, and purpose grounded in love come to be. Creation is and is preserved by Love.</p>
<p>Yet we fear to believe it. “<em>Love</em> bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back, guilty of dust and sin” (George Herbert). Not the soul only, but the body too, and nature herself show signs of a deep-down weariness. Would Love itself love a second time, love what is guilty and weak and frail? God moves over the face of the waters, calls his prophet to the river’s edge. And the prophet chants hymns of hope and washes with waters of life. He makes disciples in the thousands. The prophet’s name is John, and though he is clear in pointing to the One who is to come, his overwhelming power and presence sounded in arid voice and displayed in dress of camel’s hair and a leather belt fix the hearts of so many. Thus they stay when they should go. Having the baptism of John, they have not yet heard of the Holy Spirit. St. Paul finds these people in the interior region of Ephesus (Acts 19:1).</p>
<p>Paul teaches: “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in the one who was to come after him, that is, in Jesus” (Acts 19:4). Hands held out, Paul invokes the Spirit, and the people speak in new tongues and prophesy and become a new apostolic band of about a dozen (Acts 19:7). A church is thus constituted, a new community over which the Spirit moves, a new humanity, a new cloth, new wine, a new name and a new song, a new commandment (“Love one another as I have loved you”), and a new creation (“Behold, I make all things new”).</p>
<p>God said, “Let there be light,” and suddenly the true Light that enlightens everyone illumined a new world.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Mark 1:11. The torn heaven speaks to you.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />Pouring out and creating.</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bible-study" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bible study</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/devotions" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">devotions</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lectionary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lectionary</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div></div></div>Sun, 11 Jan 2015 12:27:23 +0000Web Editor1880 at http://www.livingchurch.orgRicheshttp://www.livingchurch.org/riches
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>2 Christmas</p>
<p>Herod hides in the hearts not only of those who openly plot harm against Christ but of those who bear the name Christian. “Bring me word that I too may pay him homage” (Matt. 2:8). This more hidden and secret violence is often vested in the language of deep interest and debate. Earnest God-talk and churchly worry is a dangerous thing. “Do not they know what they are discussing? How can they make it an open question what the country is like, which they enter when they pray?” (Austin Farrer, <em>Lord I Believe</em>, p. 9). There is, of course, an inner family humor, a joyful self-criticism of the landscape and characters of Christian faith. We should laugh often, and thankfully we do. There is also a genuine sorrow in knowing parts of the Christian present and past, in others and in ourselves. All this may be admitted within the embrace of love, bonds of affection toward Christ and his holy Church. How do we know that our homage is true? Look for these signs: overwhelming joy, the bended knee, and, most significantly, open treasure chests spilling all praise (Matt. 2:11).</p>
<table align="right" border="2" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" style="width:280px;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas2.html#OLDTEST">Jer. 31:17-14</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas2.html#PSALM">Ps. 84</a> or <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas2.html#PSALM">Ps. 84:1-8</a><br /><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas2.html#EPISTLE">Eph. 1:3-6, 15-19a</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas2.html#GOSPEL">Matt. 2:13-15, 19-23</a><br />or <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas2.html#GOSPEL2">Luke 2:41-52</a> or <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas2.html#GOSPEL3">Matt. 2:1-12</a></td>
</tr></tbody></table><p>The story of the holy child is an event of incredible joy, in precisely this way the prophet preached long ago: “Sing aloud with gladness, raise shouts, proclaim and give praise” (Jer. 31:7). “They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the Lord, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again. Then shall the young women rejoice in the dance, and the young men and old shall be merry” (31:12-13). The epicenter of this migration is Christ our Lord. In him these blessings flow. He is the grain, the wine, the oil, flocks and herds, the dance, and all merry-making. He is the radiance of full joy, for he is himself all fullness, grace upon grace (John 1:16). This can be known only in Christ the Beloved.</p>
<p>“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as children” (Eph. 1:3-5). God has acted in Christ “according to his good pleasure, to the praise of his glorious grace that he has freely bestowed in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:5-6). All these things must be treasured in the heart: good pleasure, glorious grace, freely bestowed. We are in Christ and the treasure of his fullness we own, but never deserve.</p>
<p>“As long as the all wise God was holding and keeping his counsel in secret, it seemed he neglected us and didn’t care. After he revealed his Beloved Son and showed what he has prepared from the beginning, and at the same time showed all this to us, to enjoy and see and understand his blessings — who would have expected this?” (<em>Ex Epistula ad Diognetum</em>, Cap. 8,5–9,5) The riches of our inheritance in Christ are deep and lavish, joyful and inexhaustible. It is here, in the treasure of Christ, that we live and move and have our being. With the eyes of our heart enlightened, we know the hope to which we are called, the riches of the saints, the immeasurable greatness of his power.</p>
<p>At this mystery, we bend the knee, and open the treasures that he himself gave us.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Luke 2:19. These things.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />Being and blessing.</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bible-study" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bible study</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/devotions" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">devotions</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lectionary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lectionary</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div></div></div>Sun, 04 Jan 2015 12:27:23 +0000Web Editor1869 at http://www.livingchurch.orgA Beautiful Righteousnesshttp://www.livingchurch.org/beautiful-righteousness
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>1 Christmas</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas1.html#OLDTEST" style="line-height: 1.538em;">Isa. 61:10-62:3</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> • </span><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas1.html#PSALM" style="line-height: 1.538em;">Ps. 147 or 147:13-21</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> • </span><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas1.html#EPISTLE" style="line-height: 1.538em;">Gal. 3:23-25; 4:4-7</a><span style="line-height: 1.538em;"> • </span><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearABC/Christmas/Christmas1.html#GOSPEL" style="line-height: 1.538em;">John 1:1-18</a></p>
<p>“The law was our disciplinarian until Christ came” (Gal. 3:24). The suggestion, now that faith has come, that discipline and obedience are summarily cast out is seriously and dangerously mistaken. Is not faith the <em>obedience of faith</em>? “So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good” (Rom. 7:12). Although variously interpreted in the time of Jesus, the sanctity of divine law was not in question. Rather, the One who was and is the fulfillment of the law has come, and thus the law’s fulfillment comes to Christ’s followers, most profoundly, through the efficacy, force, and virtue of his life. Christ the new law is new life, whereas the old disciplinarian tells an old and troubling truth: “I cannot do it” (Rom. 7:18). Who, then, will rescue me from this body of death, this flesh that consents to the good and yet so easily succumbs to petty wrongs and even vile and utter depravity? Who, we ask?</p>
<p>“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive the adoption as children” (Gal. 4:4-5). Although born under the law, he remained sinless with respect to the law. And yet his obedience was not slavish, but the free consent of a Son to a loving Father. “I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me” (John 5:30). It is precisely the Son’s willing consent that constitutes our redemption, for we are caught up into his life, and the righteousness intrinsic to his role as the natural Son of the Father is imputed, by grace, to us. “We receive adoption as children” (Gal. 4:4). Giving himself as a ransom for many, he makes many sons and daughters.</p>
<p>Who does this work? Christ. How? I do not know. Twenty-nine years of preaching and yet I cannot unravel the mystery and wonder of how we become children of God in union with Christ. All theories of the atonement are, in the end, no more than a glimmer, a view from a cleft in the rock.</p>
<p>The righteousness of Christ, his perfect obedience to the law and his loving consent to the Father’s will, may be compared to a garment. He is vested as the Son of the Father, and we are gathered under the shadow of the Son’s flowing robes. “My whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland and a bride adorns herself with jewels” (Isa. 61:10). How is the young man so noble? He decks himself with a garland. How is she a beauty to behold? She adorns herself with jewels.</p>
<p>Having put on Christ, we have put on his righteousness. We draw, moment by moment, from the well of his fullness, grace upon grace (John 1:16). And yet we fall and stumble and have much to learn from law and wisdom and good counsel. We repent and return and realize again that we are sons and daughters of God. Equally important, and difficult to admit, we are made not only righteous but beautiful.</p>
<p>Christ is the garment of our salvation. He is the water in the garden of human life that causes righteousness to spring forth. He is the light that enlightens everyone. The eye of faith can see that the perfect law of Christ accomplishes not only a moral and spiritual transformation but an aptness and integration, a new form of Christ’s beauty.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Isa. 61:10. He clothed me.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />Take your garlands and jewels.</p>
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>4 Advent</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv4_RCL.html#OLDTEST">2 Sam. 7:1-11, 16</a> • <a href="http://satucket.com/lectionary/Canticle3.htm">Cant. 3</a> or <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv4_RCL.html#Canticle15">Cant. 15</a> or <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv4_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 89:1-4, 19-26</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv4_RCL.html#EPISTLE">Rom. 16:25-27</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv4_RCL.html#GOSPEL">Luke 1:26-38</a></p>
<p>The king reclines in his cedar castle, reflecting on the distribution of resources in relation to status and influence. “See now, I am living in a house of cedar, but the ark of God stays in a tent” (2 Sam. 7:2). This, the king considers, ought not to be so. Let the Lord live like me, better than me, in a house of glory, of stone, brick, and gold. The king’s wish is granted by the prophet, and then rescinded after the Lord speaks. “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain” (Ps. 127:1).</p>
<p>The Lord confesses an affinity to the open air and a lightweight pack for the Divine: “I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle” (2 Sam. 7:6). The time comes, of course, when “the Lord will make you a house” (2 Sam. 7:11), and the time has come when the Lord permits to his glory the construction of basilicas and cathedrals and parish churches. Still, God is not mocked, nor should we be fooled. There are no sacred places and there is no holy land that locks, contains, or otherwise constrains the divine presence.</p>
<p>Jesus walks along the Sea of Galilee. So, in union with him, we walk. John Wycliffe, in his early Bible translation and in many of his sermons, rendered the Latin <em>ambulare</em> as <em>wander</em>. “Jhesu seith to him, ryse vp taak thi bed and wander, and a non the man is maad hool, and took vp his bed and wandride” (John 5:8; 1380 trans., OED). “The Lord will keep your going out and coming in from this time on and forevermore” (Ps. 121:8). We move and the Lord moves with us. This we know and confess in the consummate mystery of the angel’s visit to Mary: “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you” (Luke 1:28). The Lord is, of course, with her in a special sense: “you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus” (Luke 1:31). Mary’s story recapitulates Old Testament types and establishes a model for all future Christians. We are Christ-bearers. So it is fitting that Mary’s story can be anyone’s story, in some measure. And a story I have.</p>
<p>While the future mother of Thomas Aquinas was minding her own business, an angel appeared to her and said, “Rejoice, Domina, because you are with child, and you will bear a son whom you will call Thomas.” The pregnancy and birth were miraculous and immediate. One day, while Thomas’s mother, Theodora, was in Napoli at the public bath with other women, Thomas being carried by his nurse, the nurse noticed a piece of paper in the boy’s hand. “The boy, by divine providence, found a small piece of paper and grabbed it. … When the nurse tried to open his hand, he screamed. So she bathed and scrubbed and clothed the boy, and carried him to his mother while he held his hand tightly closed. When his mother opened his fist, he cried out. There she found a little scrap of paper containing nothing other than the Ave Maria. … No one could quiet his tears until he was holding the paper, which, as soon as he had it again, he put in his mouth [indicating] deep rumination and that he would, in time, know the taste of sweetness (scriptural interpretation)” (<em>Hystoria beati Thomae de Aquino</em> by Guglielmo di Tocco).</p>
<p>“The word is very near you, on your lips and in your heart” (Rom. 10:8).</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Luke 1:38.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />“Think of the Lord as being in the very inmost part of the Soul” (Teresa of Ávila).</p>
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>3 Advent</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv3_RCL.html#OLDTEST">Isa. 61:1-4, 8-11</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv3_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 126</a> or <a href="http://satucket.com/lectionary/Canticle3.htm">Canticle 3</a> or <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv3_RCL.html#Canticle15">Canticle 15</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv3_RCL.html#EPISTLE">1 Thess. 5:16-24</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv3_RCL.html#GOSPEL">John 1:6-8, 19-28</a></p>
<p>John is sent that all might believe not <em>in him</em> but <em>through him</em>. Eschewing eschatological titles that risk drawing attention away from his essential role, he asserts, “I am the voice of one crying out in the wilderness, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’” (John 1:23). Lifting up his voice, he shows himself to be a witness to the light, the true light that is coming into the world. “He himself was not the light, but came to testify to the light” (John 1:8). The translation “to testify” is unfortunate. It obscures an important alliteration; the noun “witness” is closely related to the verb “to witness.” Behind both one hears the Greek word for “martyr.” John gives himself entirely as a martyr to his role as witness. He is the witness who has come to bear witness to “the one who is coming” (John 1:27).</p>
<p>It is quite possible to see in John’s title <em>Witness</em> and his action as one who <em>witnesses</em> a description of every Christian disciple in relation to the subject of faith, Christ our Lord. “What <em>martyria </em>and<em> martyrein </em>are may best be seen if we take as literally as possible the <em>peri </em>and genitive with which John’s Gospel often denotes the object of witness. Witness is truly and in the best sense speaking <em>about </em>a subject, describing it exactly and fully, pointing to it, confirming and repeating it, and all in such a way that the subject remains itself and speaks for itself, that it is not in any way absorbed in human speech or shouted down and overpowered by it. … As we come to faith, we cannot bypass or leap over the witness, the prophet, the apostle” (Karl Barth, <em>Witness to the Word</em>, p. 52). In this sense John the Baptist represents both every individual disciple and the Church itself as living witness to the Word. The Witness, confident in his calling, remains nonetheless humble. “He is not the light, but came to bear witness to the light.”</p>
<p>John bears witness to Jesus, the eternal Word of the Father. Jesus comes among us, enters all that we are, wraps us in his enfolding arms, and vests us with baptismal innocence and new life. So the Witness must witness to the arrival of <em>joy</em>. “I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God; for he has clothed me with the garments of salvation, he has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels” (Isa. 61:10). Reject not this description. This is who we are in Christ. How can this be? Listen again: “He has clothed me with the garments of salvation.” It is God’s work, not ours. But the work accomplished is ours entirely. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20).</p>
<p>Having put on Christ, a transformation begins, our habitual and actual sanctification, which, though adding nothing to the foundation of faith, is the necessary effect of imputed righteousness (see Richard Hooker’s treatise on justification). We grow; we change. The Lord causes us to grow and, mysteriously, this growth occurs in the intersection of human freedom and divine providence. “For as the earth brings forth its shoots, and as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up, <em>so the Lord will cause righteousness and praise to spring up before all the nations</em>” (Isa. 61:11).</p>
<p>We are not the light. We bear witness to the light. And yet the light shines in our hearts, radiates in our deeds.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Canticle 15 (the Magnificat).</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />My soul is “my whole being.”</p>
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</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tags/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bible-study" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Bible study</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/devotions" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">devotions</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/lectionary" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">lectionary</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-categories-top field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/sundays-readings" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sunday&#039;s Readings</a></div></div></div>Sun, 14 Dec 2014 12:27:23 +0000Web Editor1828 at http://www.livingchurch.orgO Comfort My Peoplehttp://www.livingchurch.org/o-comfort-my-people
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>2 Advent</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv2_RCL.html#OLDTEST">Isa. 40:1-11</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv2_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 85:1-2, 8-13</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv2_RCL.html#EPISTLE">2 Pet. 3:8-15a</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv2_RCL.html#GOSPEL">Mark 1:1-8</a></p>
<p>Some may see and wish to lay emphasis upon the violent drama of Advent, the crushing arrival of a sudden end. “The heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and everything that is done on it will be disclosed” (2 Pet. 3:10). Wars already fought show this prediction not as a metaphor but a literal truth, and the threat of such destruction continues as a fact of modern life. The question is raised: “Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way, what sort of persons ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of the Lord” (2 Pet. 3:11-12). Earnestly desiring a new heaven and a new earth, have we denied our citizenship, spurned our responsibility, and turned against all natural affections? God forbid. Now is the moment to pursue a life of holiness and godliness. Now is the time to “strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish” (2 Pet. 3:14). News of the end should bind the heart to the present.</p>
<p>It’s not the end of the world, but the people sitting in Hematology/Oncology, my new friends, have, it must be admitted, a significant challenge. But there is no talk of death, no wallowing in serious ponderings about the brevity of life. Instead, there is a respectful quiet, gestures of kindness, and the occasional laugh. In other words, when death is really there, its defeat is most notable in the courage and dignity and, even, lightness of spirit shared, and, of course, the underground current of sorrow and loss. There are exceptions, but those who talk profoundly of death likely have never courted this barren truth. So the emphasis might be where it belongs: the present moment, all its joys and sorrows, and the hope of comfort.</p>
<p>Meet the real Jesus. “The earliest pictures of Christ, those of the Shepherd and the Teacher, are veiled, symbolic figures, only recognizable to the initiated. … He is usually shown as a young man dressed in a short tunic which leaves one shoulder bare (<em>tunica exomis</em>) and carrying a sheep on his shoulders (motif from St. John). He is generally surrounded by his flock and stands amid the praying souls (<em>orantes</em>), quiet and gentle, in the garden of his paradise” (<em>Atlas of the Christian World</em>, 1959, p. 44).</p>
<p>In other words, he knows just how to walk into Hematology/Oncology. He speaks quietly and tenderly, he is among the <em>orantes</em> who sit in silence, or whisper, or laugh, or weep. He knows that all the people are grass. They know it too. One man says, “I’d like to get back on my bike (Harley), but my left leg is nearly useless right now.” Jesus agrees, but only with his body, not a word. But, of course, the word made flesh, who in both life and death is ever present, stands forever (Isa. 40:8).</p>
<p>Jesus prepares the way, sending forbearers (the Old Testament) and new bearers (the Church) to help our weakened rider. He straightens the path, lifts up the valley, brings low the mountain. It is not a life-and-death trail of hairpin turns and treacherous cliffs. A smooth and simple way prepared, Jesus speaks: “See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him (Isa. 40:10). Ride for all the freedom you feel; ride for the life in you; ride, if you must, in heart and sorrow. Go, because the going is without end. Comfort, O comfort my people!”</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Isaiah 40:10. Lower your voice.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />If they know death, leave death alone! Comfort.</p>
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<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>1 Advent</p>
<p><a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv1_RCL.html#OLDTEST">Isa. 64:1-9</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv1_RCL.html#PSALM">Ps. 80:1-7, 16-18</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv1_RCL.html#EPISTLE">1 Cor. 1:3-9</a> • <a href="http://www.lectionarypage.net/YearB_RCL/Advent/BAdv1_RCL.html#GOSPEL">Mark 13:24-37</a></p>
<p>“Peace, break thee off; look where it comes again” (<em>Hamlet</em>, I,i). So the dead king appears, so death walks, so the end comes. What now is to be done with this news that the foundations have opened and the tormented dead take their place among the living? What past crimes haunt the present, what deeds done in secret spread a sickness unto death! All hell is breaking loose; it is, it has, and more is to come. A price is to be paid in blood and treasure, again and again.</p>
<p>Having returned to a land bereft of its sacred foundations, dry and lifeless like a valley of bones, the pilgrims look to an end, but not an end in death’s striding, death’s invocation of yet more blood. Rather, they ask, they demand, they lament in telling the heavens to divide. The firmament’s fabric is torn, the hills shiver, fires kindle, the glory of God goes out “so that all the nations might tremble at your presence” (Isa. 64: 2). The vision they await is beyond all knowing: “From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him” (Isa. 64:4). They expect something and someone not of this world to break in, to ride down upon the winds and to take root in Earth’s soil and flower forth in human hearts. Look where it comes! Look — life itself!</p>
<p>Jesus speaks: “In those days, after that suffering.” Thus he speaks to every time and place. And he sees reflected in the heavens signs of his own arrival. “The Sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. They will see ‘the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great power and glory’” (Mark 13:24-26). <em>Verbum caro factum est et habitavit in nobis</em>. The Eternal Word camps in human community, but not simply as the fruit of that community void of divine grace. The Word is the unmade intelligence of the Father, the ordering and renewing presence from beyond heaven and earth.</p>
<p>He comes in creating and ordering all things, he comes as voice to prophets, he comes as the written law, he comes in the forming of a people and nation, he comes as judgment, he comes as a call to renew the temple, he comes as the people’s expectancy. In the fullness of time he comes as the only begotten of the father, full of grace and truth. He comes in what he says and does, in parabolic word and perplexing deeds. He comes in his suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, and a thousand million Spirit-filled comings in sacraments, and rites, and signs, and times, and moments, and tears. He comes in the unearned blessings of love and life. But he comes mysteriously as the one beyond this world who is the world’s very being, our meaning, and our life.</p>
<p>Our war-torn and anxious world seeks not from us a happy denial, but a deep hope that waits and works from the promise of God’s arrival in his Son from moment to moment. This is why, before turning to Paul’s criticism of the people in Corinth, his commendation of their gifts is to be taken as entirely sincere. They are gifted because the Gift has come. “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind” (1 Cor. 1:4).</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Look It Up</strong><br />Read Mark 13:27. Keep awake.</p>
<p align="left"><strong>Think About It</strong><br />Look you. He comes.</p>
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